Expecting the nutritional value of Christmas cotton candy, I instead left It’s Complicated convinced I’d seen the smartest, most insightful, funniest romantic comedy since When Harry was in Seattle. Or was it When Sally was Sleepless? Either way, It’s Complicated is the most enjoyable present you’re bound to find beneath your tree this holiday season.

Meryl Streep plays Jane, the divorced mother of three grown children who has settled into a comfortable routine running a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant. For the sake of her kids, she has maintained an amicable relationship with her ex-husband Jake (Alec Baldwin), an attorney who left her a decade ago for a much younger woman. Things get complicated when, during a trip to New York City for their son’s graduation, Jane and Jake rekindle the cooled sparks of their marriage. What starts as an innocent meal together turns into the unthinkable—an affair—as Jane finds a human connection she’s missed for so long and Jake finds the sort of mature companionship he lacks at home. Jane feels out of control, yet free for the first time in years, seesawing between feelings of euphoria and guilt. Jane’s rebound guy is the guy she’s rebounding from.

Further complicating matters is Jane’s budding relationship with Adam (Steve Martin), an architect she’s hired to remodel her house. Still healing from his own divorce, Adam begins to fall in love with Jane just about the time he realizes he is just one corner of a rather thorny love triangle. When Jake and Jane’s kids discover their parents’ clandestine affair, everyone is forced to wonder if love is truly lovelier the second time around or a grave mistake reopening old wounds that had just begun to heal.

It’s Complicated is easily writer/producer/director Nancy Meyers’ (Something’s Gotta Give, What Women Want) best movie yet. Meyers, who specializes in romantic fare for thinking adults, has made a fun, flirty and playfully naughty film as honest as it is hilarious. The laughs occur organically and often. But there is a lot of truth behind the laughter. The film doesn’t gloss over Jane’s guilt or the consequences of her actions. When her shrink tells her the affair “couldn’t hurt,” we understand his good intentions (Jane is in danger of sealing herself off emotionally), but we know he couldn’t be more wrong. If getting herself into the affair was far easier than she imagined, extricating herself, should she choose to do so, will be a Herculean emotional task.

Following hard on a string of box office behemoths (The Devil Wears Prada, Mamma Mia and Julie & Julia), Streep continues to defy the odds, delivering astonishingly rich, funny roles for women over 50—an acting demographic that has all but withered for other women her age. Baldwin, who delights the world weekly with his marvelous comic intuition on the sublime 30 Rock, continues to prove he is nothing short of a comedy god; while Martin, who always rises to the occasion whenever he can be bothered to choose a good script, is warmly endearing. You genuinely like both men and at the screening I attended, there was more than a little good-natured arguing in the lobby afterward about if Jane made the right choice. (Hint: she did!) The rest of the cast is also pitch perfect, from Rita Wilson and Zoe Kazan to John Krasinski, who steals every scene he’s in (hard to do when you’re in the same frame as Streep and Baldwin).

I laughed in It’s Complicated more than in any other film this year. Comedies, especially those for thinking adults, don’t get any funnier than this.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.